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Television
Children's Television through the Decades *Popular Children's Shows of the 60's *Popular Children's Shows of the 70's *Popular Children's Shows of the 80's *Popular Children's Shows of the 90's *Popular Children's Shows of the 2000's *Popular Children's Shows Today As mentioned in the "Advertising" section of this wiki, children are extremely sensitive to media and have an excellent memory of its content. As decades have gone by, this has become a well-known fact; many parents raise concern, now more than ever, about what their children are exposed to on a daily basis. According to these lists of popular children's shows through the decades, it is evident that slapstick cartoon shows were popular with older generations. While some of said cartoons may still be popular, they have moved down the list. Why is this? Parents usually control the remote. With the recent widespread worry that cartoon violence will corrupt children, many parents have disallowed their children from viewing shows with such violence. ("Death of Cartoon Violence") Even dark elements that were once part of children's cartoons have been removed for this reason. 'Example: "Tom and Jerry"' Please note: a full episode of The Tom and Jerry Show could not be found. After watching both clips, it is shocking that both originated from the same television show. The content of "Blue Cat Blues" (1956) includes references to depression, suicide, violence, and promotes the idea that, to win a woman's love, a man must buy her expensive gifts. Although suicide and depression are implied and may sail over the heads of child viewers, and these dark concepts are exaggerated for comedic effect, there is no denying this episode is far from anything most parents striving to teach their children good values would show their children today. The clip from "Bat Mouse" of The Tom and Jerry Show ''is more representative of many of today's television shows for children. The most inappropriate or violent concept in the above clip of "Bat Mouse" are Jerry's pants falling to the ground, and Tom squashing him with a fly swatter. It is clear that, since 1956, slapstick humor has not been completely removed from ''Tom and Jerry ''(or as it is called now, ''The Tom and Jerry Show), because that is what it has been known for, but the dark, more "adult" topics have been. Today's society is more sensitive around children when it comes to dark topics, because it is believed that children are not ready to hear about them yet. As discussed in the Advertising' '''section of this wiki, children can be easily influenced by what is presented to them on television shows and in advertisements. The censorship of "adult" topics and violence in children's television and movies represents the need to protect children's innocence and to teach them good values. ''For more about censorship of sensitive topics, see ''Lies versus Truth The lists also reveal that many shows today have been written to appeal to a specific gender, whereas television shows were more unisex in earlier decades. However, some of these shows exhibited strong gender stereotypes (for example: in ''Tom and Jerry's "Blue Cat Blues"). See more: Gender What do Teenagers Watch? Teenagers watch a variety of television shows, but one of the more frequent themes of teens' shows today is reality television: shows in which real people living their so-called everyday lives are continuously filmed. ("Definition of Reality TV") The main characters in these shows are most often not ordinary in any manner--that would be too boring, right? Reality TV often contains vulgar language, drug use, sexual references, and lots of drama. According to studies at the University of Iowa's Chilren's Hospital, "each year television exposes youth to more than 14,000 sexual references and jokes." (Skeen) This is quite strange when the censorship involved in young children's shows is considered. Although society tries to teach young children good values, those values seem to get discarded from much of the media which teens view. How is it that we desire for children to be taught wholesome values while we allow teenagers within the same society watch shows in which such values are not exemplified? Young children are still in their fundamental stages of development, so they are in need of guidance for developing their skills in social interactions, intellectual development, etc. so they will be responsible as they grow more independent. Adolescents are expected to have already developed these skills, so the shows they watch do not necessarily need to feature role models for their behavior. Reality television shows can be watched by most adolescents purely for entertainment rather than guidance mixed with entertainment. However, the main conflict during the developmental stage of adolescence is Identity versus Role Confusion. Adolescents who do not have a solid foundation of identity may see the characters of reality television shows and associate their fame with rash behavior (which is featured in the shows), and mimic the characters' behavior due to the manner in which it is glamorized.